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Brooklyn Today for April 9

Brooklyn Today for April 9

Paul Robeson. Wikipedia photo

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Good morning. Today is the 99th day of the year. On this day in 1898, actor, singer and political activist Paul Robeson, for whom Brooklyn’s Paul Robeson High School campus is named, was born in Princeton, N.J. Robeson was an all-American football player at Rutgers University and received a law degree from Columbia University in 1923. After suffering from racism in the legal profession, however, he went into the theater, starring in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones.”

Robeson is best known for his roles in “Showboat,” both on Broadway and in film, and in Shakespeare’s “Othello,” on stage only. His best-known song today is “Old Man River,” although during World War II he was equally known for his rendition of the patriotic song “Ballad for Americans.”